EU referendum, brexit and the aftermath

So does this mean a hard border on the Irish sea ? or is it brexit in its death throes ?

So does this mean a hard border on the Irish sea ?

Ignoring the DUP, that's what it looks like. But that still raises complications:

Experts in Belfast say the reported deal raises difficult questions about government in Northern Ireland.

“How do you define regulatory alignment? Who is going to oversee it? What kind of dispute resolution mechanism is there? Is this going to be the responsibility of the devolved government and, if there isn’t an assembly, is it the responsibility of London and Dublin?,” asked David Phinnemore, professor of European policy at Queen’s University.

Unlike countries in the European Economic Area, which automatically adopt European law, regulatory alignment suggested that a decision would have to be taken in the UK to make sure that parallel adoption of laws, he added.

Phinnemore said it was important to see the other wording in the 15-page document relating to non-trade issues and the 142 areas on North-South co-operation identified by Britain and the EU as being impacted by Brexit.

Out.

Because I'm unbelievably interested in the mechanics of it and voting out is the only way to see it happen.

"Two years ago a friend of mine, asked me to say some MC rhymes..."

Not looked at detail, but on the surface "regulatory" sounds goods/ services based as opposed to people.
Might they try and make this UK wide? Removing freedom of movement and maintaining other elements would be a bit of a coup for the tories, from their perspective.

Hahahaha.

Ha.

This is a dogs dinner of a fucking compromise, that has opened a very large can of worms. The EU will not budge on the four pillars of the single market.

'regulatory' means the loss and removal of the EBA & EMA has finally revealed to the brextards, (Redwood et al), that even if the Tories failed to negotiate anything other than the hardest of Brexits, reverting to trade on WTO Tariffs does not mean the 1st day of post-brexit trading is all tickety-boo.
It is the non-Trade barriers to trade that will stop trans-border commerce.
We have had regulatory compliance, the Single Market, for so long, few have memories of Certificates of Compliance and Certificates of Conformity.
Also, Barnier has stated from the beginning of these negotiations that the four pillars of the EU are indivisible, no Single Market without Freedom of Movement.

Sounds to me like a desperate last minute fudge to get the talks moving to round 2 while hoping that they can sort out the worm-can later. Which they won't be able to. Because it's all fucked up.

Forgive me for the obvious question, if we can see this as a can of worms, surely the Eu negotiators can see this? Why would they accept this from the UK negotiators?

Probably because Davis has conceded on every discussion point so far,
(due to the brexit worldview being so far removed from reality),
and,
they are curious to find out what else happens as Davis' ignorance is corrected.
(UK throwing the UK-dependent tax havens under the bus is a likely one).

The old "give them some rope it may be enough to hang themselves" game perhaps?

I hope the EU won't accept the shit that the UK is offering on EU citizen's rights (and therefore UK in EU citizen's rights...) settled status can be refused and then you have to re-apply from outside the UK, people will lose reunification of family rights and all sorts of other rights.

With what as the outcome?

Forgive me for the obvious question, if we can see this as a can of worms, surely the Eu negotiators can see this? Why would they accept this from the UK negotiators? With what as the outcome?

I think they would probably see it as our can of worms. I guess at two parts of the outcome that they are working towards is 1) UK has been an obstruction to greater unification which could proceed with us gone, and 2) creating a strong deterant to other countries (and more importantly states I would imagine) following the same path of exit

Regarding your point earlier about extending the regulatory area across the whole of the UK, remember that it would require some form of impartial arbitration service along the lines of the ECJ, and the UK being out of the EU would have no say in the terms that are applied to the area (think punative rates on financial transactions to hurt the Bank of London for instance)

Another thought about enough rope to hang - I wonder if it might be similar to the Irish Gov. publication about the border - implying that there is some sense of progress to get the UK team to promise pie in the sky, and then use that to make it clear just how preposterous their position really is

Fair points. I guess what I struggle with, is the paradoxes at play here.
It's not really in either parties interest for the UK to crash out, I've certainly heard Frankfurt assert this in term of London remaining a large finance hub.

Then you have May who was (is?) a remainer seemingly going towards quite a hard Brexit. Who regardless of what I think of her policies etc. seems hard to believe she can be as inept as she currently appears. So I'm left feeling something isn't quite right...

Let’s not forget that May created this mess herself by declaring her intent to leave the single market, the customs union and the jurisdiction of the ECJ.

A more sensible policy would be to leave the EU but remain as part of both the single market and the customs union, which a majority of MPs would support. But she pandered to the hard core Brexiteer element in her party so is stuck in a logical trap, you cannot have all of leaving the single market, leaving the customs union and maintaining the NI/EU border as it is today.

However sensible that might have been, I'm not sure it would have been worn.
Doesn't really seem like leaving to the average person.

Maybe I'm too optimistic or giving May too much credit.

Why not? We’d have a similar arrangement to Norway, who aren’t members of the EU, but are members of the EEA.

All the ballot paper said was effectively should the U.K. leave the EU. It didn’t say let’s go for the hardest possible Brexit and completely fucking trash our economy, because most people wouldn’t have voted for that.

Sadly I think a lot of leavers did vote that. An end to freedom of movement being a pertinent part.

Throughout the campaign the vast majority of those who campaigned to leave stated very clearly that we wouldn’t leave the single market.

I know they lied about pretty much everything, but issues like this weren’t well understood and discussed. Just as ending immigration wasn’t. The winning side have attempted to interpret the vote to give them a mandate, dressed up in fascistic nonsense “the will of the people”, “saboteurs”, “enemies of the people”. We should call them out on this at every opportunity.

Throughout the campaign the vast majority of those who campaigned to leave stated very clearly that we wouldn’t leave the single market.

We need to keep harping on about this. Same that it was sold to people as a money saving exercise - 'we can cut through red tape and fund the NHS'. I feel like I'm living in 1984 with the level of revisionism going on, but we're living in a time of the internet and we can prove that these fuckers never sold Brexit as a way of making us worse off, even in the short term. The talk a year ago was of having our cake and eating it. Even hardcore Brexiters are susceptible to the feeling of being cheated (if they don't feel personally attacked - which just makes them double down).

Accepting the reality that the UK will NOT get a special arrangement, and can pick from a few existing options.

I think if the UK then sees sense and cans the whole thing the EU will be happiest as well (nobody needs this hassle, the EU has enough bother with Poland/Hungary and refugees the UK doesn't have to take as it's not part of Schengen...) but if not, the EU is not willing to let it get a special deal.

As the long term consequences of that are only more hassle for the EU with no benefit that outweighs the costs. It's a game of "if you don't listen, you are going to have to FEEL it" and it sucks, but the UK was warned by, you know, experts :)

"let's leave the single market, lose all input and Euro clearings and not be able to control immigration more than we already do" also a fantastic idea :)

Now it turns out anti-immigration sentiments (sub consciously mostly) implanted by years of the Daily Hail and a bus with a number won the vote, and the wheels on the bus have already come of.

I don't see immigration faring better, unless the UK wants to be able to exploit immigrants more, as that is the direction it's going to lately. That won't help local workers either... "take this crap wage, or get sent back cos we won't sponsor your visa" what are you going to do?

This is from Twitter, how accurate it is I don't know:
Timeline:
10am: EU v confident of deal. No 10 slightly reticent
1pm: Everything fine. Juncker goes into lunch with May
2pm: Sturgeon wades in
2.30pm: DUP explodes over Irish border compromise
4pm: Juncker-Tusk lunch paused. May calls Foster
5pm: Juncker and May say no deal today

A good summary of how May boxed herself into a corner;

http://www.politics.co.uk/blogs/2017/12/04/ireland-chaos-brexit-will-either-break-may-now-or-it-ll-brea